Maurice Ravel was the son of a distinguished engineer and inventor. In the 1870s, when his father was working on railroad construction projects in Spain, Maurice was born on the French side of the nearby border. The family returned to Paris a few months later, and there, at the age of seven, Maurice Ravel began his musical studies; at eighteen, he began to write music, at twenty, he was a published composer.

In the late 1920s, when the Boston Symphony Orchestra was approaching composers to whom it offered commissions for compositions to be performed during the 1930-1931 anniversary celebration. Stravinsky, Hindemith, Respighi were among those who accepted and wrote new works for the orchestra, but Ravel, after airing the possibility of writing a piano concerto, sent nothing because he had several other projects in mind at the time. In addition to the concerto, he was thinking of an opera on the subject of Joan of Arc that was never to be written. Ravel worked off and on for more than two years on the concerto, which was to be his last orchestral composition. Shut off from the rest of the world at his country home, he spent ten to twelve hours a day at his desk, especially during the period in 1931 when he was simultaneously writing both the Concerto in G and Piano Concerto for the Left Hand.

The G Major Concerto was barely finished in time for its premiere in Paris on January 14, 1932. The soloist was Marguerite Long, to whom the work is dedicated; the composer conducted. Later, Ravel told a newspaper interviewer that this work was a “concerto in the strict sense, written in the spirit of Mozart and Saint Saens.” “I believe,” he said, “that a concerto can be both gay and brilliant without necessarily being profound or aiming at dramatic effects . . .. In the beginning, I thought of calling my work a ‘divertissement,’ but afterwards considered this unnecessary, since the noun ‘Concerto’ adequately describes the kind of music it contains.”

The first movement, Allegramente, with its whip crack opening, is a work of hard and brilliant wit, forceful and energetic. The slow movement, Adagio assai, contemplative and rhythmically complex with hints of the blues, somehow also arouses recollections of every kind of concerto slow movement from Bach and Mozart to Gershwin. The finale, Presto, is brief and brilliant. It contains a flash of jazz, fanfares, and piano flourishes.

Shorthand takes its title from Leo Tolstoy’s comment that “Music is the shorthand of emotion. Emotions, which let themselves be described in words with such difficulty, are directly conveyed to man in music, and in that is its power and significance.”

The piece references two themes from Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata for violin and piano (which inspired Tolstoy’s novella The Kreutzer Sonata): the opening theme, as well as a second theme that Janáček also incorporated in his own String Quartet No. 1, "Kreutzer Sonata” (also inspired by Tolstoy’s novella). That second Beethoven theme inspires the opening material for Shorthand.

Shorthand exists in two forms – for solo cello and string quintet, and for solo cello and string orchestra and these are dedicated to my husband, Jody Elff.

American composer Dr. Adolphus Hailstork has written over 250 works in nearly every genre, and his music has been commissioned and performed by orchestras throughout the country. A native of New York, he holds composition degrees from Howard University, the Manhattan School of Music, and Michigan State University. Hailstork cites his early experiences as a chorister in the Episcopal Church as the foundation of his unique voice. As he said in a 2021 interview, “I once read an essay about the two threads—a modernist thread and populist thread—that entered into the 20th century. You can pick one or the other. I’m more on the populist side: tonal, lyrical. I am interested in a continuation rather than a breaking away from.”

Premiered in 1992 under the baton of Hazel Cheilek, the Sonata da Chiesa, or “Church Sonata,” was a commission from the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia. The term “sonata da chiesa,” originating in the Baroque era, refers to an instrumental work suitable for performance in church—essentially, one that did not incorporate dance movements like minuets and gigues. However, Hailstork pushes the definition further, pulling in his fascination with cathedrals—especially the Cathedral of All Saints in Albany, New York, where he grew up—to create a church-inspired orchestral work. Intended to be performed without pause, the Sonata da Chiesa’s seven sections relate in some way to sacred contexts. Words like “Exultate” (Exalt) and “Jubilate” (rejoice)—perhaps even recalling Mozart’s famous motet of the same name—occur alongside selections like “O magnum mysterium” (O, wondrous mystery) from the Christmas Matins service. Hailstork even refers to actual Mass movements, like the “Agnus Dei” (Lamb of God) and “Dona nobis pacem” (Grant us peace).

Throughout the Sonata da Chiesa, Hailstork’s music reflects the mood of the Latin titles. “Exultate” is a rhythmic, jubilant chorale, while “O magnum mysterium” is quiet and introspective. “Te adoro” (I adore) features intimate string solos, and “Jubilate” is celebratory. As is so often the case in settings of the Mass, the slow, contemplative “Agnus Dei” serves as the emotional heart of the work. In the “Dona nobis pacem,” solo lines almost sound like plainchant, serving as a bridge to the reprise of the opening “Exultate.”

Benny Goodman, the great jazz pianist, commissioned Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto in 1947, just as the composer was setting off on a good-will tour of South America. He finished the first movement in Rio de Janeiro that October, but on his return to the United States he had to put the Concerto aside to compose the music for The Red Pony, a film based on the novel by John Steinbeck. He completed the Concerto in October 1948, after making some revisions that Goodman suggested would alleviate the problems of some high notes and other difficulties. Goodman gave the first performance on November 6, 1950, with Fritz Reiner and the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

The Clarinet Concerto is a short work in two connected movements, the first slow and the second fast, combining the kind of musical elements from jazz that Copland had used in many of his early compositions with the stark and severe style of his later concert music. The two movements are linked by a cadenza for the clarinet soloist. The concerto is a subtle and elegant score that Jerome Robbins used in 1951 for his ballet, The Pied Piper , a work that was very successful in the theater, although some of Copland’s admirers thought that the music was too fine for the choreographer’s clownish extravagance.